Kutuzov, of course. Old Magnet-man — Svengali. If he said it was important — vital — then you did it, no matter how gritty your eyes were, or how your stomach protested.
He glanced at his companion, heaped uncomfortably in the narrow seat, and trying to doze. Then he stretched his eyes wide, and concentrated on the flying sleet, the fuzzy headlights, the sudden slow rush of other lights out of the darkness.
He saw the other lights, realised that they were high up, as on a truck, and swerved. He was aware, in the few seconds remaining to him, of a noise as Ozeroff lurched like something resurrected in the back of the van, and his companion stirring as he was jolted awake, mumbling through a dry, sticky mouth for him to take more care. He was aware, too, quite certainly, that he was going to die, and that the betraying Ozeroff was lying in mock state in the back of the van — and he hoped the local police were very stupid men.
Then the car-transporter, having strayed across the white line because the driver was tired, and hurried, flipped the van over on its back, as a child might turn a tortoise upside-down with the aid of a stick. The van, apparently that of a towel service firm, ended up in the ditch at the side of the A40 just outside Wheatley, after somersaulting twice. The back doors burst open, sliding out, almost as in a farce, the body of Ozeroff, feet first, on to the roadside verge. The driver was crushed against the wheel — the passenger flung through the windscreen. The driver of the transporter, uninjured, was sick when he inspected the wreck and the three bodies. Then he called the Oxford police from the nearest telephone box.
Kenneth Aubrey was chilled, angry, and fascinated. Traffic on the A40 had been reduced to a single lane, and a canvas screen erected to shield the accident from the inquisitive. Behind this, spotlamps glowed in the sleet, shining down on the sodden bundles, side by side now, and covered with grey blankets, themselves sodden wet; policemen directed the moribund queues of cars coming home from pubs and parties, or analysed the events of the accident. Aubrey alone, perhaps, now that he had been introduced to the three bodies, remained still, and contemplative.
'So much stuff on them, sir, we got in touch with the Branch. They must have thought of you.'
'They did, indeed, Inspector. My thanks for your promptitude,' Aubrey had replied stiffly to the Inspector, who was bending to peer under the umbrella Aubrey carried. And such stuff — chauffeur's uniform, British passport for someone, with a face not identifiable among the dead here, another change of clothes, and one of the dead murdered with a rather out-of-date, though still effective, KGB tool, the watch-wire — Times Cravats, he understood were their popular name. It was KGB, that was evident — the one security machine above all others that enjoyed the gadgetry of violent death, the little toys that killed.
And towels from the airport — strange that they had not rid themselves of them, or the white coats. Aubrey thought he understood the lethargy of aftermath. But — who was dead, and who killed him? And — Aubrey could almost taste the feline pleasure of the mystery — who owns the face on the British passport?
'Inspector?' he called.
The policeman, disgruntled and wet, hurried up.
'Sir? CIS have some instructions to give. Perhaps I might use your car radio?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'And I shall have need of photographs of these three — not here, but when they've been cleaned up. As quickly as possible — you can get them removed now. All papers, anything you remove, will be collected for our own investigation, early tomorrow.'
'Sir.'
As they walked bowing to the windy sleet, the Inspector grateful for Aubrey's offer of a crescent of the umbrella, Aubrey had a sudden image of the crash outside Kassel, months before. And he sensed an excitement he could not quite explain, certainly not define with any precision, that here was coincidence in a certain direction. He hurried his steps, unconsciously, to the police car.
'You'll want it rigged through to — London, sir?
'Yes, use the number you would normally use — I'll take it then.'
It took little more than two minutes for the police radio to be patched into the receiving station on one of the floors of the Euston Tower, and from here Aubrey was connected directly with INTELCORD, the SIS's co-ordination and evaluation section, housed in Queen Anne's Gate itself, unlike many of the service's units.
'There you are, sir.' The Inspector left without pause, handing the mike to Aubrey, shutting the car door on the sleet and the traffic. As the window misted almost immediately, Aubrey felt quiet, and calm, with a little tickle of excitement beginning somewhere in his stomach.
'Who's that?'
'Callender, sir.'
'Good. Callender — send someone out here to collect some pictures, some bodies, and some evidence, would you? One of your customers has some nasty marks on his neck, which one of our foreign counterparts is responsible for. I — shall want a lot of clearance time for this, Callender. I shall want to know who the men are, and whose picture I have in a fake passport.'
'Sir, we're right up to here with co-ord work—'
'No, Callender, you are not. Not as of early tomorrow morning. Hurry things up, would you? Out.'
He sat for a time in the fuggy car, warmth not apparent, but cold less so. A great nuisance that he was booked on a morning flight to Helsinki, to act as Waterford and Davenhill's control, and to oversee security, in conjunction with the CIA man, Buckholz, for the Treaty Conference's final sessions, when Khamovkhin and Wainwright would both be present.
A great pity. Here, on this Oxfordshire roadside, there was a real mystery — and, with an instinct he would never have trusted as a younger man, he knew it was important.
Galakhov knew that his picture had been taken at least twice during the time he spent passing through Passport Control and then Customs at Seutula Airport. It would have been done by the CIA, by Finnish Intelligence, even perhaps by the KGB. It did not matter. To any foreign intelligence service, he was simply a native Finn returning to Helsinki, then travelling north; and to the KGB, he was expected. And they would be expecting Ozeroff to look like him, not like the body in the Heathrow toilet. Records had been changed, the computer doctored, everything required already done. Thus, it was with confidence that he passed through the controls, out into the lounge, and waited to be contacted.
He could not restrain a small pulse of excitement beating in his chest, making his breath flutter. There had been little reaction on the plane to the killing of Ozeroff — he had had a couple of drinks, true, but only for the pleasure; no, but he could not help, as he stepped on to Finnish soil, realising how deep into the operation he already was, and how close to the real simplicity of the thing. Preliminaries were almost over — he and Khamovkhin, soon. All he had to do was to pass the interview with the Head of Security where Khamovkhin was being kept during his visit, then act his part until Khamovkhin was no longer required to be alive.
'Have you a light?' a voice asked him at his side. He turned slowly.
'What?' he asked in Finnish. 'What do you want?'
Nonplussed, the young man said, 'Have you a light?' He spoke in Finnish.
'I am a non-smoker — it is a filthy habit,' Galakhov replied, bored, even amused at the kind of rubbish the KGB still considered viable operational procedure.